general What If Not Recycling Recycable Materials Was A Crime?

[EpicEnergy 22,066]

How would you react? Would making recycling a crime solve some problems or worsen them? What would be the penalty for committing this crime? Those are just some questions to get you thinking about this topic.

As for me, I would be surprised if it was made a crime, and it would frustrate me as I would be forced to recycle materials instead of choosing to. I think it might solve some problems, like getting more people to recycle, but I also think it would just create some problems like making people feel forced to recycle and frustrating them when they don't know what to recycle and what not to. If it was to be made a crime, I think the penalty for it should be the same as the penalty for littering.

[SharpWit 2,472]

I'm pretty thorough when it comes to recycling and think more people should be, so I'm all for the idea. I dig through the bathroom trash when emptying it for the toilet paper rolls if I didn't bring them all down to begin with, I recycle receipts, save up my grocery bags for later usage, and bunch up thin aluminum products like tins and foil if they're not too dirty and so they can be processed. I talked to some people from our local recyclers and found out that most plastic eating utensils are made up of a recyclable material, they just had the issue of being in a form that their equipment couldn't properly/efficiently process. I live in an area where all of our recyclables go into the same big bin as opposed to having to actually sort it like I've had to elsewhere.

The issue to me is how would you go about enforcing this, and I was curious to see if there were any laws pertaining to mandatory recycling. At a glance, at least some parts of the UK appear to have a system where a percentage of waste has to consist of recycled materials, and if quotas aren't met, fines will be issued in the future.

I don't think we can do anything on an individual basis unless you live in a community where you have to take your waste to a landfill or recyclers yourself, but that's really only in communities where people live so far apart, i.e. ranch/farming territory. The best way I see us going about this, is providing educational materials to residents on how they can improve recycling habits and learn more about what should go where. From there we'll give something like a 3 month grace period where progress is recorded for a general area to see how things have improved. Afterwards, we'll issue fines to the areas who haven't met the goal, and this can be done by the city through some sort of tax increase, or the bill for the waste collection in your area will go up. This would require a measure to be voted on of course.

 

[TBD 17,228]

Then I would be serving time a loong time ago . I don’t recycle much, so yea, guilty as charge.

[Dreambiscuit 8,022]

Making a crime out of something harmless and meaningless would only cause problems. So it's good to have at least something that isn't illegal in the world. Besides, people tend to respond better to things when it's voluntary and they're not forced into it.

As for me, I recycle when there's an incentive to it, like getting a few cents back for my empty soda cans. That way everybody wins. 

[Stardust 640]

A lot of people would be arrested then 

[Adorable Lovestar 243]

I would recycle things, I guess. Simple as that.

[ZiggWheelsManning 7,297]

Gotta obey the law to recycle things equals a cleaner Earth